On 24 and 25 July 1979 a Fire Suppression Symposium hosted by the Directorate of Combat Developments (USAFAS) was held at Fort Sill. The purpose of the symposium was to arrive at a unified approach for studying the suppressive effects of fires on the modern battlefield. The symposium was divided into three sessions. At the conclusion of the first session the participants arrived at a consensus definition of 'suppression.' It was 'Suppression is the process of temporarily degrading unit or individual combat performance through psychological and physical means'. The symposium members also decided that within the framework of the definition the focus of the work groups would be on the direct fire and indirect fire aspects of suppression. Electronic warfare, psychological operations, and obscuration were considered, but it was decided that because of the limited amount of time allotted, the discussion of them would be deferred. In the second session participants worked in their five work groups centering attention on their specific subject areas, (suppression variables(effects); suppression variables(causes); Data Base Requirements; suppression modeling; suppression/countersuppression combat and training developments). At the beginning of the third session the participants received a reproduced copy of the proceedings of each group's effort up to that point. In this manner 'cross-fertilization' between groups was effected. In addition, there were other materials submitted, but not presented at the symposium. These materials are included in Section VI of this report.

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